Perfect
5.0

Marvel puts it all together for one of their very best movies yet in Thor: Ragnarok, an absolutely terrific blockbuster, and a damn funny one at that. Crayon colored, heavenly inspired, charismatically performed, deeply rooted yet easily accessible, it would be great even it weren’t a sophisticated LOL-fest. But it is.

Notwithstanding typical Marvel plot, backstory and character density, Thor 3 is easier to follow than many Marvel movies, especially the often convoluted Avengers episodes. It’s amazing how smoothly it flows.

Add in well-crafted moviestar performances from Chris Hemsworth, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Mark Ruffalo and Benedict Cumberbatch, not to mention a particularly funny Stan Lee cameo, and this is one blockbuster with an embarrassment of riches.

The classic poster above characterizes all that blockbuster goodness: Crayon coloring, eight major characters, each played by a major moviestar, complex yet coherent interrelationships, and fun, fun, fun.

Perfect
5.0

Chris Hemsworth has been boffo as the God of Thunder from the jump. Now he goes almost full Leslie Nielsen in playing this ultimate überhunk for laughs, which he easily earns. Plus, he does a male-model turn for the ages when his precious locks get shorn into a bitching short cut, accented by a pair of red racing-stripes down one side of his handsomely hewn mug. Looking up at a coliseum full of bloodthirsty gladiator fans, he creates an instantly classic image in the history of major movie images.

Cate Blanchett etches a performance for the ages as Thor’s big sister Hela, with her hellacious name describing the primal nature of her godly character. The Great Cate rocks it well, delivering a bravura performance at once supremely physical and deeply dramatic. No surprise, she famously announced herself to the cinematic world with a perfect royal performance as one of history’s greatest queens in Elizabeth.

Tom Hiddleston has grown into Loki, a villain who revels in his underhandedness. He and Chris Hemsworth have developed a fractured fraternal chemistry that works extremely well.

Huge Cast

Idris Elba’s Heimdall gets to move around this episode, no longer stuck at the Bifröst Bridge.

Jeff Goldblum is perfectly Jeff Goldblum as a down-market Caesar on a godforsaken planet.

Male Costars
Perfect
5.0

Perfect
5.0

Director Taika Waititi doesn’t get a writer’s credit, nor does Chris Hemsworth, but they helped infuse the film with the funnies. In fact, it is one of the funniest Marvel movies yet, damn near a laugh-a-minute. Yet unlike Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, the action never becomes mere backdrop for the comedy.

Thor: Ragnarok represents another data point in Marvel’s ability to improve a series as it progresses, the Iron-Man and Avengers series excepted.1 The Thor series joins X-Men and Captain America in trending ever upwards. The perfect Thor 3 improves over the great Thor 2 and the very good Thor origin movie.

1Iron-Man launched Marvel movies with a funny, flashy, cataclysmic and clever movie that was a perfectly ironic entertainment for our time. Iron-Man sequels have trended downward from that perfect beginning. As for The Avengers series, those movies started great and have generally stayed there.

Direction
Perfect
5.0

Play
Really Great
4.5

Music
Perfect
5.0

Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song could have been created for a Thor movie, being a piercing screed about Norse mythology, amped up to hard rock volume.